As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,346,077 wire shelving systems are well known and they are becoming increasingly popular. In the past, use of wire, or ventilated, shelves has been limited to industrial or commercial applications, such as in large refrigeration units, stock rooms and warehouses. The advantage of wire shelves was that they allowed circulating air to reach the goods stacked on those shelves.
Recently, wire shelving has come into wide use in homes. As pointed out in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,349 ventilated rod-type shelving is now being used more widely because it is aesthetically pleasing. It is also desired because it is simple to assemble, even by relatively unskilled homeowners.
Wire shelving of the type contemplated herein generally encompasses a plurality of shelves, each of which includes a number of spaced apart, parallel, transverse deck rods which are supported by longitudinal rods which extend at least along the rearward and forward edges of each of the deck rods. Additional longitudinal rods can be provided across all of the transverse deck rods. Each of the shelves so constructed is mounted on a vertical support structure such as a closet or pantry wall by means of brackets, braces, and the like. Wire shelves are also the subject of other prior art patents, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,367,510, as well as U.S. Pat. No. 5,148,928. And they are specifically described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,593.
Increased usage of shelves of the type described in these patents has revealed that they are subject to certain drawbacks. One such disadvantage is that when small electric appliances with legs, such as skillets and waffle irons are placed on the shelves, their legs penetrate the spaces between deck rods. Ultimately they can spread the rods apart. Electric cords used with such appliances also present a problem when it is desired to place them on ventilated or wire pantry shelving. Thus although wire shelves are desirable from the aesthetic and ease of installation points of view there are various end uses which are subject to improvement. The placement of small objects on such shelves can also be a problem, particularly on pantry and bathroom shelves. As an example, on pantry shelves small containers such as spice cans and bottles tend to tilt or fall over. On bathroom shelves care must be exercised if small medicine bottles and pill boxes are to be used, even when transverse rods are spaced one-half inch apart. In closet shelves, with one inch spacing of transverse rods, the heals of ladies shoes tend to drop between transverse rods. In the case of ventilated shelving in storage rooms, tools and the like will hang through, or fall through, the spaces between transverse rods. To overcome such spacing problems a few homeowners have resorted to the placement plywood panels or corrugated box panels on the shelves. Use of these panels, while covering the spaces between rods, defeats part of the reason for the shelves by destroying the aesthetic character of the shelf. It also works against the ease of installation of the shelving, especially if the plywood is being painted, to say nothing of the added weight. Such problems are eliminated by the liner of this invention, and, equally important, the aesthetic values of wire shelving are retained.